This is how the Supreme Court's Gay Marriage decision is good for couples' mental health

Last Friday, the US Supreme Court made the historic decision to rule that same-sex marriages are now legal across the nation. In a close 5 to 4 vote, the judges narrowly upheld the legality of gay and lesbian couples to marry — something that 36 US states had already sanctioned.

In the majority opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that notions of equality and respect were key to their decision. “It is demeaning to lock same-sex couples out of a central institution of the Nation's society, for they too may aspire to the transcendent purposes of marriage,” Kennedy wrote.

According to The New York Times, 70% of Americans already live in jurisdictions allowing same-sex marriage, and the new Supreme Court decision effectively extends that right nationwide. Polls also show a majority of Americans supporting same-sex marriage. Read on to find out how this new ruling is good for the mental health of couples.

Scientists believe the new ruling will bring psychological benefits to the LGBT community

Many social scientists believe that the affirmative ruling will deliver psychological dividends to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.

A marriage contract offers many legal protections and benefits. But equally important is the security and sense of well-being it can provide couples, the experts explained.

“We’re a very marriage-prone society,” said Susan Roxburgh, a professor in the department of sociology at Kent State University in Ohio. “If you take a group of Americans in their 50s, something like 90% of them will have been married at least once. And part of the reason is that there’s clearly a marriage benefit.”

“Part of it is the element of social control and social support,” she said. “It adds a great deal of prediction to daily life. Someone is looking after your health, after your well-being. So married people tend to be in better mental and physical health than the unmarried. They live longer, and they have lower rates of suicide and depression.”

Robin Simon, a professor in the department of sociology at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC agreed.

Marriage security could be the reason behind the predicted psychological boost

“Marriage is a source of purpose and meaning and security that offers a big psychological and social boost,” she said. “It’s very clear, even when compared with unmarried co-habitators who live together in a committed relationship. Yes, those couples do better than single folks. But married people do the best on all measures of psychological well-being, which is, of course, a main reason why the LGBT community wants marriage.”

There are those who disagree with the concept of gay marriage — primarily religious organisations and conservatives who insist that, for millennia, marriage has been an institution for a man and a woman. Many of these opponents of same-sex marriage endorse the idea of civil unions between gay couples.

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However, psychiatrist Dr Jack Drescher, a gender and sexuality expert in private practice in New York City, said that when it comes to weighing the desire for the social benefits of marriage against the desire for legal protections, “you really can’t separate the two.”

“When gay marriage is legalised, that’s the state giving its blessing, that the relationship is authentic and recognised and has legal ramifications,” he said.

Reasons couples could’ve been stressed before the law was passed

“Preventing people from enjoying the social benefits of marriage is itself distressing, because marriage is a form of social integration, a connection with the broader community,” she said. “So, not allowing a person to marry can seriously erode his sense of well-being. It’s a blatant form of systemic social rejection.”

And that, says psychiatric epidemiologist Ilan Meyer, means that the push to broaden the access to marriage to all Americans is ultimately a symbolic stance against LGBT prejudice.

“Gay people have always formed relationships,” said Meyer, who is a senior scholar for public policy with the Williams Institute for Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy at the UCLA School of Law in Los Angeles.

“But even if a couple feels satisfied in its own relationship, if it’s relegated to a separate category outside of marriage, then that is society placing a stigma on that relationship. It sends a message that you’re not part of this society that you’re not equal and your relationship is not valued.

“So to me, the inclusion of the LGBT community in the institution of marriage would reverse this rejection by sending a strong message of respect and dignity and inclusion,” added Meyer. He delivered this argument when serving as an expert witness for the plaintiffs in the 2010 federal case that overturned California’s ban on same-sex marriage, also known as Proposition 8.

“The point,” said Meyer, “is that apart from the very practical protections that come with marriage, the really important element here is that marriage is really a very core thing about who you are attracted to and who you want to build your life with.

“So, the symbolism of normalising the institution to include gay people will benefit not only those who want to get married but even those who don’t,” added Meyer. “It won’t end homophobia, any more than the 1964 Civil Rights Act ended racism. But it will chip away at it. It will say that gay people are not inferior. It will say that they are equal.”

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This is how the Supreme Court's Gay Marriage decision is good for couples' mental health

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